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MYERSTOWN – The year 2018 is very much in its infancy. But is it still early in the season?

For the Elco girls’ basketball, it’s not too late, yet.

On Tuesday night, the Raiders took a step in the right direction and improved to 1-0 in 2018, with a 51-23 lock down of Annville-Cleona. . The Raiders played some stifling man-to-man defense and outscored the Little Dutchmen in each of the four quarter to slowly turn a close game into a route.

To this point of the winter, it’s been an up-and-down campaign for an Elco club which entered the season with higher expectations. The resulted evened Elco’s overall record at 5-5 and its Lancaster-Lebanon Section One mark at 2-2.

For rebuilding Annville-Cleona, the result made it 2-7 on the season and 0-4 in the league.

“I certainly don’t think we’re quite where we’re going,” said Elco head coach Ashli Shay. “But we’re on our way. We played some tough teams. Are we where we want to be? No. But tonight was a step in the right direction. Are we going to get there? Yes. I would never question this group. We’re playing tougher and more physical.

“They’re all in important, especially in the section,” continued Shay. “We need to value every game, every possession. We’re getting close to the halfway point. We need to build off tonight. We need to go up from here.”

“I’m not concerned as much about our record,” said Annville-Cleona rookie head coach Ryan Shannon. “We’ve got new coaches, new players and new roles. We’re just trying to improve, build and get better.”

Following a competitive opening quarter, the Raiders began to assert themselves in the second period.

First it was an 8-0 run fueled by six points by Ryelle Shuey and two free throws from Julia Nelson that gave Elco a 15-8 lead. Then it was an 8-1 burst – courtesy of points from Amanda Smith, Jordan Rosengrant, Shuey and Nelson – that pushed the Raiders advantage to 23-11.

Annville-Cleona’s Harper Sellers had given her side an 8-7 edge with 2:30 left in the first period.

“I thought defensively we played well,” said Shay. “We rebounded well. We played well for 32 minutes. That’s one of our focuses right now. The third quarter, as of late, has been a downer for us.

“Tonight I thought we kept it together,” added Shay. “We stayed aggressive. Overall I thought we were very physical. We’re trying to build from that.”

“We did not play very well,” said Shannon. “We just need to do the little things better. That’s what makes the big things happen. We’re inexperienced and Elco is a veteran team.

“We did the little things in the first quarter,” Shannon added, “We dribbled with our heads up, we saw the floor. You’ve got to keep active.”

“Anytime you have an athlete of Ryelle’s caliber, you’ve got to build around her,” said Shay. “We want to play inside-out. In the second half, we did a really nice job of attacking inside.

“We want to play fast,” Shay continued. “We want to get hands on balls. We want to get into passing lanes.”

“It was just getting a little tired,” said Shannon of the second quarter. “These mistakes can be fixed. We can work on them.

“They (the Raiders) rebound,” Shannon added. “They’ve got girls who go to the glass. They hit the boards. They’re definitely a program we want to emulate.”

Elco began to pull away from the Little Dutchmen in the third stanza.

The Raiders held Annville-Cleona score-less for a stretch of 4:30 in the third, and got nine straight points out of the combination of Shuey, Nelson, Rosengrat and Kayla Gerber, to extend its advantage to 34-13. The period ended with Elco ahead 38-18.

“In the third quarter, I thought we set the tone,” said Shay. “We got some really good looks inside. We stayed in attack mode.”

“I think they (his players) fight pretty well,” said Shannon. “I was trying to send the message that we never stop. When you play Annville-Cleona, we’re going to fight to the end. We’re playing a lot of kids.”

Elco closed the issue by opening the final quarter with nine consecutive points, Gerber turned a steal into a lay-up, Shuey scored on an inside move, Nelson got to the rack on a drive and Cassie Johnson converted a three-point play, as the Raiders led 47-18, with 2:46 remaining.

“They hustled the entire game,” said Shay of the Little Dutchmen. “They certainly didn’t quit. They hung around the whole first half. They’ve got some nice building blocks. They played hard for 32 minutes.”

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